THE RIGHT STUFF

If you are going to have insomnia the best way to have it is beside an open window under which a night-blooming jasmine is planted.

However, to get the full and right impact, it must be a happy jasmine. Ours has not been happy for a couple of years.

We planted it in the summer of 2005. It was too small to bloom until 2006, at which time it gave us everything we had hoped for and expected -- an abundance of that unique scent filling our bedroom. Then along came years 2007 and 2008. No smell. No blooms. Nada. Who knew why? When the edict came down from the apartment management at the beginning of the summer than we would no longer be able to use the outside faucets to water our plants (they capped them to make sure we obeyed the rules) and we had to start lugging buckets of water from the bathtub faucet out through the living room and onto the plants, I considered chopping the thing down. No use having a night-blooming jasmine that didn't bloom.

But bucket lugging paid off. When I had to hoist the first bucket of water down on the roots of that plant, I saw that all the leaves had acquired a half-inch edge of yellow completely around them. That was happening about half-way up the plant. I called the green-thumb of the family (Jerry) to take a look, and it puzzled him too. So he took some leaves down to our friendly nursery, where the owners are actually on site and knowledgeable, and they said we were feeding it the wrong stuff.

About a month ago Jerry gave the plant its first feeding of the "right stuff" and in the last week the blooms are back to their usual self. Oh, so wonderfully fragrant.

I've been having some insomnia lately - like lying there for two hours before the sandman comes round - and being able to smell the jasmine makes it all worth while. I am SO pleased. We have a new neighbor lady whose bedroom window almost abuts ours; I am hoping she also likes that smell because she's getting a bunch of it, I know.

It is amazing what the right kind of food does for things. Even plants.